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Meaningful concepts I learned in CISW 11
Meaningful Concepts I
learned in CISW11
The first and most important topic that I learned in
CISW 11, was basic HTML. While to most newcomers to the internet think
that this will become dated with all the new technology, that makes it
simple as a click of a button to create a webpage, I find it very
useful. Getting to the core of what a website is, was fascinating to
me. I knew about HTML before the class but I never dove into it and
actually learned about it. It was always something I would look at and
think that it was way over my head to understand. But once I got the
basics down I can now look at source code for websites and make some
sense of it. While I am no master at it, it is fun to mess around and
create a free website and just toy with all the HTML tags out there.
While I doubt I will ever create a website for my career choice it is
something I might create for the family where we can all get on and
find out what is going on with each other. Similar to a blog of sorts
just for the family.
The second most important feature I learned about
was how online stores work. This is more down my line of work. It was
interesting seeing how many steps there are for me to get the product I
ordered. I always used to think that it was simple as when I go to the
brick and mortar store and buy my items there. The book shows there are
seven differnet steps before I get what I ordered. But if you
really start thinking about inside each of those steps is another step.
You start so much movement by simply clicking your mouse and entering
your credit card. You might actually create more jobs when you purchase
items online. When you think about it, most of the products we order
online do not come from the store down the street. I know some of my
products come from overseas. When I look at the tracking log on a
certain item I bought, it started off in China, went to Japan, Alaska,
Canada, New York, Austin, Vegas, San Fransico, then Ontario. All of
these places someone had the job of making sure my package made it to
the correct destination. It was amazing, how many people handled my
product before me. Whereas if I went to the store, about half of those
people would have handled it.
The third concept that I learned was the many ways
of communicating over the internet. Before this class I had never heard
of a listserv or newsgroups. These are interesting features of the
internet that I would like to spend some more time on, learning about
them. While I may never use them I would still like to know how they
work down to the core. But that is just like me I want to break
everything down to the simplest form so I can rebuild and understand it
fully. I think I might want to join a few of these listservs and
newsgroups just to see what they are all about. If I understand it
enough I might try and create one for my friends.
The final concept I learned in CISW 11 was the many
ways of making payments online. I generally use my debit card for any
purchases. While this is a generally accepted way of paying it is not
the safest. I always thought that I was safe when purchasing from
online stores. That was until I learned about HTTPS now I always look
for the or a SSL tag before a purchase anything online. But back to
ways to pay. An interesting way to pay is the digital check book. This
is a way to get rid of your real checks and just keep your check book
online while usful to some to me it really does not have the bang that
I need. I have used PayPal before and while it was easy I for some
reason did not trust them fully. But that is just me. I would much
prefer to use my card where I can monitor all the it's actions online,
through online banking. The digital wallet is another model but sadly
it has not taken off like hoped for. The final model for payment online
is the smart card. This is the one I am most interested in. I have not
taken a good hard look into how this works but it does have the backing
of Mastercard, Visa, IBM, Bank of America and some government offices.
I do not know about you but with so many high profile backers I think
it is a safe bet that this will take off here shortly.
